Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server Is Getting There

Canonical's Ubuntu Server hasn't yet caught up to the progress that's been made in Linux desktops, but it offers a serviceable alternative to server offerings from other Linux vendors and from Microsoft.

Canonical and the Ubuntu Project have done great things to
help bring Linux to the mainstream desktop. But what about the server edition?
If Ubuntu can bring the same level of polish to its server offerings, it should
be a formidable competitor to Microsoft and other Linux vendors. Looking at Ubuntu
Server 10.04, aka "Lucid Lynx," there's a lot to like and also some
disappointments.
Is Ubuntu Server as polished as its desktop cousin? In a
word, no. The software is solid, and the package selection for Ubuntu Server is
fairly deep and comprehensive. For organizations looking for a Debian-like OS
with a much more predictable life cycle and the option of support, Ubuntu 10.04
LTS (Long Term Support) may be a good choice.
All things being equal, I'd probably choose Ubuntu Server over another
community server distribution like CentOS, but I prefer Debian-like systems for
servers.

Ubuntu doesn't offer the same kind of management tools that
you'll find with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (Anaconda and other tools) or SUSE
Linux Enterprise Server (YaST). If the options are RHEL, SLES and Ubuntu LTS,
the choice is a bit tougher. The documentation and management tools, barring
Landscape, aren't yet on par with the other enterprise counterparts.

Once set up, Ubuntu LTS
is a solid system. It's an especially good choice for Web servers, mail servers
and so on. I like the depth of packages that are offered via the Universe
repositories, but I'd like to see better management tools in future releases.
Ubuntu 10.04 Server Edition is available for free download. Canonical offers paid
support for the distribution, priced at $750 per system per year for 9/5
support, and $1,200 per system per year for 24/7 support.
Getting started

Installation is fairly bare-bones, with a text-mode
installer that offers two main choices: Ubuntu LTS
Server or the cloud edition of Ubuntu Server. For the most part the installer
is simple enough to use, but has a few rough edges. This is especially true
when it comes to partitioning. The text-based partitioner is a bit confusing to
use and doesn't handle nonstandard partitioning schemes as well as it could.
Lynx also lacks a good option for automated installation, though it's possible
to use FAI (Fully Automatic Installation).
To put Ubuntu Server through its paces, I installed it on
several systems, from a dual-Xeon machine with 8GB of RAM
to a Atom-based netbook with 1GB of RAM.
Though the netbook isn't suitable for any mission-critical deployments, you can
actually run a decent LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP/Python/Perl) system
for a local network off a netbook with 1GB of RAM.
I do like the preconfigured selection of software. Ubuntu LTS
offers nine software collections, including DNS (Domain Name System) server,
LAMP, PostgreSQL, OpenSSH server (which should be installed anyway), Tomcat and
Samba. It's also possible to select software manually during the server installation,
if you need to.
It's worth noting that this is the first LTS
to offer the option of encrypting the partitions and home directories for
users. I tried Lynx with and without disk encryption and didn't notice a
significant performance hit with encryption.

Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier is a freelance writer and editor with more than 10 years covering IT. Formerly the openSUSE Community Manager for Novell, Brockmeier has written for Linux Magazine, Sys Admin, Linux Pro Magazine, IBM developerWorks, Linux.com, CIO.com, Linux Weekly News, ZDNet, and many other publications. Brockmeier is also a FLOSS advocate and participates in several projects, including GNOME as the PR team lead. You can reach Zonker at jzb@zonker.net and follow him on Twitter.